


3:30 in the last night for you to save this

by owl_light



Category: Just Music Entertainment, Show Me the Money (Korea TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Catholic Character, Catholic Guilt, Childhood Friends, Confessions, Drunkenness, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Opposites Attract, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 01:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owl_light/pseuds/owl_light
Summary: "I used to be in love with you in high school." Sungmin's eyes go smaller when he grins.Byungyoon chuckles. "What?"





	3:30 in the last night for you to save this

**Author's Note:**

> oh we're so disarming, darling  
everything we did believe  
is diving, diving  
[diving, diving off the balcony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S97xQKZDV_4)

They have to turn the AC off because Sungmin insists that he can hear it hum on the track. It's sweltering in the studio, oppressive and sticky enough that Byungyoon's jeans are damp where they stick to the backs of his knees. Sungmin's hair looks wet at his temples. It's pale pink at the ends, and he wears it knotted in loose braids that touch his collarbones. He's gnawing at a wooden convenience store chopstick left over from when they had dinner earlier, because Byungyoon won't let him smoke in the studio and it's too hot to move and go outside. He's wearing a shirt that looks like it used to have sleeves before he went at it with a pair of scissors. Byungyoon is stewing in a Prada button down.

It's been eight months since Sungmin was released. They still joke about it, like it was somehow not one of the worst things to happen to them. Like Sungmin got a slap on the wrist instead of a permanent record. 

Sungmin laughs about it the same way he does when he tells that story about how he broke his collarbone when he was drunk. Byungyoon expected he'd be angrier about how flippant Sungmin is being. That he'd spend less time laughing along. He chalks it up to his self-restraint, and thanks Saint Francis for his friend being back.

Being back in the studio together feels misaligned with all the other parts of their lives. Byungyoon tries to imagine it the same in his head, hoping that the force of his conviction will somehow reach the humid air around them, but it doesn't. Things remain different. Sungmin has more tattoos now, and he's quieter. He just grins at Byungyoon sometimes, a spark in his eyes, and laughs when Byungyoon shakes his head at him. Still, they fit each other well. That's stayed the way it's always been, odds notwithstanding. 

He stares at Sungmin more than usual. Too much, maybe, but he figures that's normal, because Sungmin has changed. He's still Byungyoon's best friend, but it's like something he'd been keeping close to his heart made its way out to the surface, writing itself all over his skin. Weaving itself through the clothes he wears, flashier now than Byungyoon is used to. It makes sense his thoughts would be buzzing with Sungmin. It's normal he'd still be thinking about Sungmin even after he's gone from the studio, only leaving behind a chewed chopstick and a greasy handprint on the surface of Byungyoon's desk. He scrubs at it with a wet wipe. He clicks the AC on, and it dries the sweat on the back of his neck.

It's the worst heatwave Seoul has had in years. Byungyoon feels like he's breathing through gills whenever he's anywhere without air conditioning. He shaves his hair as close as he can stand it, and he drinks ice tea until he feels like his stomach is about to burst. At church, all the ahjummas fan themselves with the parish booklet, even at morning prayer. The pastor pulls on his collar when he thinks nobody is looking, his upper lip beading with sweat. 

Sungmin releases his comeback album, and it's not a sound Byungyoon expected. It's not a sound anyone else expected, if the comments online are anything to go by. In the lyrics, he talks about drugs, and sex, and alcohol, and then drugs some more, and Byungyoon doesn't understand how he keeps getting away with it. 

As some things never change, Byungyoon has a cameo in the second music video Sungmin shoots. They goof around when the cameras are off, but once they hit record, Byungyoon takes a deep breath and centers himself and draws up his best poker face. It's the BewhY style. 

They take a photo with Sungmin hanging off his back, grin ear-splitting and shiny in the blue light. Byungyoon shoves his hands in his pockets and stares just out of frame, at the wall, while Sungmin's arms wrap around his shoulders and clasp together on his chest, palm flat against palm. It ends up being a great photo. Byungyoon posts it to his Instagram, and feels a rush of happiness every time he gets a new notification on it. He puts the hashtag _#repent_ on it, and Sungmin messages him, laughing about it.

Byungyoon works on his album, holes himself up in the studio with his mother's homemade hwachae and the fridge stacked with plastic containers full of pre-portioned meals. He lays down the instrumental, listens back to it while he has lunch, and then fine tunes the lyrics. He texts Shin Hyoseob about a collaboration. He emails. 

The hands on his clock go around, and around again. He records a track, and starts all over again with the next one.

He has a track with Sungmin on the album, because it wouldn't feel right not to. Because they fit each other well. It starts with a fake-out, kind of — as bombastic and theatrical as any of the others Byungyoon is making, but then it peters out from that, only to reassemble itself into a song about love in the loneliest, quietest corners of the night. 

Byungyoon knows he can sing. He just doesn't do it often. This time, it fits, and it works. Their voices are different, and their style is different, but they fit each other well, like they've always done. Byungyoon doesn't think that will ever change, despite everything that keeps being thrown in their path, and there's a huge comfort in that. 

Once it's all done and dusted and the album is shipped off to be released, Byungyoon lets himself have an evening where he just enjoys the finality of it, of having completed something he worked so hard on. He goes to his church to light a candle, and he thanks God for His grace.

He lies in bed, on top of the covers, scrolling through Instagram the evening of the day that _The Movie Star_ drops, watching all his sunbaes post about how fire BewhY's new shit is. 

Sungmin messages him, _yo the deja vu callback in adaptation is sick! bewhy rules this motherfucking game bro!!!_

It makes him stop refreshing Melon. He stares at the chart. The only light in his room comes from his phone and the streetlights from outside reflected on his wall through the gaps in the blinds. The only sounds are the ticking of his clock and the traffic outside. 

_We rule this game,_ Byungyoon writes. He moves to lie on his side, scrolling down his Instagram feed. Sungwoo hyung is posting about his cats again. 

His phone vibrates. Sungmin says, _doesn't God say something about staying humble, lmao…_

_I know how hard I worked and what I'm capable of,_ Byungyoon types, fingers fast on the keyboard. _I'm not full of hot air._

He's reposting an Instagram story from a fan of a screenshot of his album on iTunes when Sungmin replies. _aight father this kid considers himself enlightened~_ Byungyoon sighs. _stop refreshing melon and go to sleep or the ahjummas will see your fillings at morning prayers tomorrow lol._

_I always put my hand in front of my mouth when I yawn,_ Byungyoon replies.

He can imagine Sungmin lying in bed as he texts him, covers tangled around his ankles because Seoul is still in the middle of a heatwave. His glasses low on the bridge of his nose so he can read his phone screen without having to raise his head. But — no, Sungmin is probably somewhere in Itaewon at this point, taking a break between flirting with foreign girls and getting another round in to tease Byungyoon over Kakao.

_sweet dreams~_ Sungmin says, and sends a little purple heart emoji.

And maybe he's not in Itaewon after all. Maybe he's just home, cross-legged on the floor, back leaning against the wall, having a late night smoke and talking to his best friend. Byungyoon is lulled to sleep with the comfort of hope. 

The next couple of weeks are a whirlwind of promotions, photoshoots, and forever refreshing the charts. Byungyoon feels like he's walking on a conveyor belt, assembled as he goes, into a hip hop star, a fashion icon, a new voice. And then broken back down, reset to factory settings, to Lee Byungyoon, Incheon-born Jeju boy who is often so tired when he gets home that he uses shower gel instead of shampoo, but who makes a point of making himself doenjang jjigae for breakfast on mornings when he's not eating at church. 

Sometimes he sleeps in. Sometimes he feels guilty about it, and tries to tell himself that there's different ways to praise God, and that what matters is that his heart is sincere. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, among the flurry of Instagram story reposts, refreshing the charts and answering emails about what his manager calls _opportunities,_ Sungmin invites him along to a gig he's doing in Hapjeong. It's in a basement club, tucked in an alley overlooked by urban planners. AC condensers stick to the walls in groups, like the pigeons that doze on the power supply boxes on the telephone pole at the mouth of the alley, tangles of cables trailing away to their destinations above them. It's a Thursday, but the air is full of cigarette smoke and drunken laughter anyway. A girl stumbles down the pavement to her cab, nearly twisting her ankle and giggling when her friend steadies her. 

The sound washes over Byungyoon like a wave as he goes down the narrow, tiny staircase. Louder, and louder, until he passes through another door that leads right into the club, and his skin is almost tingling with the beat. The stage is what it often is in places like these — a mixing deck, a laptop, some kind of metal frame to protect the whole thing from the crowd, and little else. 

Byungyoon's shoulder blades dig into the wall. He can feel the beat in his collarbones. Sungmin is with his friends, by the stage. They're all heavily tattooed, men and women alike. They're all wearing clothes he's never seen anywhere before. He remembers being introduced to some of them, but he barely knows them anyway. They're Sungmin's friends.

He pulls his hat down lower, and it has to be something he does as a characteristic nervous gesture, because Sungmin spots it, and him, from across the room. He's grinning, pushing through the crowd — and then his hand is on Byungyoon's shoulder and he's pulling him down into a hug. Byungyoon leans down, the corners of his mouth already being tugged apart by a smile. Sungmin gives him a tight squeeze instead of a hello. 

And then, as Byungyoon starts to move away and right himself, Sungmin goes on tiptoe and plants a wet, wet kiss in the middle of his forehead. Byungyoon laughs from the very centre of his chest, feeling every single one of Sungmin's fingers pressing into the back of his head.

"Thanks for coming, Byungyoon-ah," Sungmin says. Somehow his voice is perfectly clear to Byungyoon, despite the music. His pupils are wide in his eyes. He has a hand on Byungyoon's bicep.

Byungyoon nods. "As if I'd miss this," he says, and Sungmin laughs. Like he expected that answer but it makes him deliriously happy, anyway.

The song that's playing switches from hook to verse, and in the transition, Byungyoon hears someone nearby say, "Yah, that's BewhY. Shit, shouldn't he be at mass right now?"

Drunken laughter, and then someone else says, accent alcohol-heavy, "Looking like that, shouldn't he be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, luring smaller fish into his mouth?"

Sungmin narrows his eyes over the sound of more laughter, as the hook hits again and drowns out the rest of the conversation. "Hey," he says, louder than the music, looking only at Byungyoon, "let's have a drink before I go on."

It's Sungmin's first gig since getting out. Byungyoon, back hugging the wall again, doesn't quite know what to make of it. Neither does the crowd. They're not used to this new CJamm, who shaved off his dreads, bleached his hair and let it grow long, and put autotune over all his vocals. He's been around for long enough that he should by all rights be playing bigger, better places than this for his comeback gig. But he's also been away for two years, and the public has a short attention span. Even though there's fans in the crowd who know all the words to his new songs, it doesn't seem like a comeback. It feels a little bit like starting from zero. But.

But, when Byungyoon sees his best friend up there, forearms shiny with sweat that makes the black of his tattoos stand out, the mic so close to his lips he's a breath away from swallowing it, when he looks around the room as people's confusion at the new sound turns to enjoyment, he realises he got it wrong. It's not starting from zero and climbing back up. It's starting fresh. And it's good for Sungmin. 

Byungyoon gets another beer. Non-alcoholic, always. And another. Nobody talks to him, but he catches phones pointed his way, several times. He doesn't turn to stop them. What would be the point, anyway? They'd just be replaced with new people with different phones, as quickly as he asks them to stop taking photos. He's glad he didn't ask his manager to come along tonight. He wonders where Sungmin's manager is, if he's even here. If he even has the same manager he had since before he was convicted.

There's a lot of foreigners out tonight. There's been more of them coming to Hapjeong lately, spreading out from Itaewon to other clubs in Seoul over the recent years. They speak English, French, Japanese, and other languages Byungyoon doesn't recognise. There's a group of girls, American by the sounds of it, dressed the way Korean girls wouldn't be, dancing next to the stage and laughing loudly. One of Sungmin's friends is giving one of them looks, the kind of looks guys around here give foreign girls when they know they can get away with almost anything if they make them feel wanted enough.

And then Sungmin is at his side again. His hair is curling with the humidity in the club air. He brings with him a powerful smell of cigarettes. He must have been smoking outside. They clink their drinks together. Sungmin has a full bottle of soju. 

"Thanks for coming, seriously," Sungmin says. The bottle of soju he's holding is still dewy, like it's fresh out of the fridge. "But be up there with me next time. Choi Wonjae has a gig lined up in Itaewon in a couple of weeks, and Swings hyung wants me on the lineup, too." He takes a swig from the bottle. "You don't have to perform or anything, if your manager hyung says no, but— I'd just like it if you were there with me." Sungmin grins. "I missed you."

Byungyoon nods. Squeezes his beer bottle tight. "It's been a while," he says. The music is still loud. They're still shouting to be heard. 

Sungmin laughs. "Aish, you bastard," he says, and shoves Byungyoon's shoulder playfully, "there's no need to get sentimental." 

Byungyoon grins with all his teeth. "Missed you too. I'm glad you're back." 

The smile Sungmin gives him after he says that makes Byungyoon feel like he's more worthy of God's love than usual. It makes something start simmering warm in the middle of his chest, in a way that he doesn't usually associate with Sungmin's smile. With anyone's smile, really. 

The DJ plays old school R&B and West Coast rap, the kind of stuff Byungyoon learned how to read English for so he could pirate it off obscure American blogs when they were in high school. Sungmin waves him over to his group of friends. It's as nice as it can be when you're the only sober one in a group of people who see you as their friend's weird hanger-on at best, and at worst try very hard to make you feel included, even though you have very little in common. Byungyoon isn't here to pick up girls. He doesn't smoke or drink. He won't go to the men's room to do a line with them. 

But Sungmin has always been weak for all those things, especially foreign girls. He keeps looking at one in particular tonight. She's tall, with long blonde hair and pale white skin like the sun is her mortal enemy. She looks like she stepped out of the July page of one of those pin-up calendars with girls whose clothes are a stiff breeze away from falling off. The tip of Sungmin's nose just about comes up to her smooth shoulder. 

They start dancing together, and Byungyoon doesn't mean to look, but she moves so fluidly to the music, on the beat like it's the movements of her body that are producing the sounds, and not the speakers. And Sungmin as well, full of soju and who knows what else, in that shirt with the sleeves cut off, his muscles defined by the dim lights and the lines of his tattoos. He looks at her with an intensity in his eyes that Byungyoon doesn't think is appropriate for anywhere outside of the bedroom. 

She dips down, and Sungmin's thigh is between her legs. Her short, tight tight skirt strains as she spreads her thighs and pulls him in closer. She has a hand on the back of his neck. He has his hands on her skin, just below the line of her skirt. She has roses tattooed on the backs of her legs, blooming red down her thighs to the backs of her knees. 

Byungyoon watches Sungmin kiss her neck. Watches her lips part, her eyes close as he moves a hand between their bodies, pulling her skirt up just a little. His hair falls over his face, hiding his grin. Byungyoon clutches his phone in his pocket, and decides it's time to call it a night.

Outside, his cheeks feel like they're on fire when he's waiting for his taxi to arrive. He can feel his blood pumping faster. 

The taxi windows fog up as it drives towards his flat. He drags a hand through the condensation, stares at the black snake of the Han outside. The taxi driver is listening to a radio station Byungyoon doesn't recognise, playing old, old trot songs that would never get on the air at any other time except after midnight. 

There's a rosary wrapped around the rearview mirror. It swings off beat to the music. The beads are plastic, made to look like soft pink crystals, and when they catch the headlights of the oncoming car, they glint. It reminds Byungyoon of Sungmin's grin. It reminds him to set his alarm for church tomorrow.

His face still feels hot when he gets home. He shoves his sweaty clothes into the laundry bin and steps into the shower, letting the water hit the crown of his head. He turns his face up into the spray, closing his eyes. 

He sees that girl in the club, her hips moving like the music is in her blood. Her tiny, tight skirt. Her soft hair falling past her shoulders. 

He skims his hand, down past his belly button, and further down.

She wore a top that barely covered her stomach, white and clinging to her curves. He wonders how her breasts would feel in his hands. How her nipples would taste. 

He rubs his free hand on his neck. Digs his fingers into the dip of his collarbone, and presses down on the bone until it hurts.

Sungmin had his hand on her thigh, on the red roses. He wonders if he took her to the bathroom. If he fucked her or he just fingered her. If she'd be noisy, or if she'd bite at her lip and try to be quiet. 

How she'd kiss. If she'd let Sungmin lead. Let him bite at her lips, at the line of her throat, suck on her skin. 

He squeezes his fingers around himself. He bows his head. The water hits the back of his neck. 

Would she pull on Sungmin's hair? Push it out of the way so she can kiss his neck? He wonders if Sungmin would smile the same, slow and slick, like he's winning. If he'd say anything at all to her, or if he'd just breathe hot against her neck, into her mouth, on the soft skin of her breasts. 

How she'd put her hand on him and not stop until he was shaking from her touch, sweat in his hairline.

He thinks of Sungmin kissing his forehead. His fingers on his neck. His lips close to his ear.

Byungyoon comes with a gasp, his fingers pressing on the back of his head, in his hair. His forehead on the tile wall. 

He almost sleeps through his alarm the next morning, but he goes to mass anyway, yawning behind his hand when he thinks nobody is looking. He kneels in the pews, head bowed, hands clasped tightly together. He prays for his parents, and his brother, and for Sungmin, and for his own peace of mind.

_Show Me The Money_ is a fever dream this time. He produces, and watches them fail and fall and rise again, and produces, and exists on coffee and energy drinks and hope that he never lets them stomp over. He crosses himself before they turn on the cameras every time, and gives a quick _please let this go well for us._ He's producer BewhY, and none of it feels real, up until the final taping, when Lee Yongshin wins, and the confetti rain down from the ceiling. His heart lifts up to the heavens, warmer than the heat of the sun. He lights candles at the altar of the Virgin Mary at his church, one for each of the producers and one for Yongshin, and clasps his hands together to thank her for her kindness.

There is no time to rest, because he has more plans for _The Movie Star._ He'd always wanted his and Sungmin's song to have a music video, from the very start. They film it in a part of Seoul that Byungyoon has never seen and didn't think existed. Way out on the outskirts, where the city gives way to warehouses and buildings that look like they were constructed out of multiple shipping containers stuck to each other. And yet somehow there's always tiny restaurants, no bigger than Byungyoon's living room growing up, lined down the streets. So close to the airport that when you look up, you can see the white underbellies of planes as they land and take off, like fish they pull out of the tank at the restaurants before they gut them. 

They film a scene in a junkyard, surrounded by crushed skeletons of cars dating back years, sleeping excavators, corroding pieces of metal too misshapen to be recognised, and a whole crew of cameramen, lighting technicians, sound guys, coordi noonas, a director and producer, and both their managers. They start at dawn, and finish well past midnight, with Byungyoon and Sungmin standing next to a fire fed by tyres and scrap metal. The night is chilly, and they're both only wearing suits. Byungyoon's front is sweating from the heat of the fire, and he can feel goosebumps raise on the back of his neck from the cold of the night behind him.

The next day, they film in a metro station. Byungyoon walks down the exact same hallway sixteen times before the director decides he's happy with it. When they go in, it's daytime. When they call it a wrap and climb the escalator, Seoul is neon and headlights and the sun an orange memory on the horizon. 

They wait for the evening's light of the third day to be dim enough to film the last part, with Sungmin and Byungyoon and a car on a stretch of road leading from a place Byungyoon has never heard of to a place he'll never go to. There's only forest and grass, and mountains in the distance, and a glassy canal running along the length of the road, with rusted traffic barriers and a concrete slope separating the asphalt from the water. They get there early, and have to wait until the sun sets to film the scene they need. The road is miles away from any lights, so they have to haul a big floodlight on the back of a truck just to light the scene at all. 

They have to reshoot five times, because the same shot needs to be taken from different angles and they only have so many cameras. Byungyoon stands just behind Sungmin, and then turns around to walk away and get in the car. He slams the door shut after himself, and the director calls cut. 

And then they do it again. Once they're done with that, he stops the car and leaves it to the driver and the lighting crew. Then it's time to shoot the same thing, but from the inside of the car. And that means readjusting the lights, changing the lens, moving the whole operation slightly to the left so that nothing accidentally gets caught in frame. 

While they wait for the crew to prep the scene, Sungmin smokes by the side of the road, and Byungyoon keeps him company, like he always does. He has Sungmin's phone in his hand, the camera on. The light is good, even here, thanks to that giant floodlight. Or good enough to take the kinds of lo-fi photos Sungmin likes.

"I used to be in love with you in high school." Sungmin's eyes go smaller when he grins. 

Byungyoon chuckles. "What?"

Sungmin raises his arms, letting his hands drop behind his head. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows. His jacket is folded over Byungyoon's arm. He doesn't wear it for the shoot, but he wraps himself in it whenever the cameras are off. He wears his hair loose, tucked behind his ears. "Take the picture."

The flash momentarily blinds them both when Byungyoon clicks the shutter button. "Sorry!" He says, over Sungmin's surprised curse. 

"Jesus— that's fine, as long as I have my eyes open." Sungmin rubs at his eyes, stepping closer to take his phone back and look at the picture. "Oh yeah, this is going on Insta."

"What do you mean, you used to be in love with me in high school?" Byungyoon's jacket is buttoned up tightly. He picked the outfit himself. His ascot is dark red. He spent ten minutes looking up tutorials how to tie it, and then gave up and left it to one of the coordi noonas. She still kept walking up to him and fixing it between takes. 

Sungmin takes his cigarettes from his trouser pocket. "That was ages ago, though. You were in love with Siyeon until she moved." He says that like those two things are the same. Like he didn't drop this out of the blue. "Hey, do you have my lighter?"

Byungyoon rifles through the pockets of Sungmin's jacket, and comes up with a ten thousand won note, a red soju cap with the metal strap torn off, and an old receipt for gummy worms. His fingers brush against a small foil packet, and he sighs. "Siyeon noona was a girl." He tries not to emphasise any words in that sentence, just stares at Sungmin. "Why do you have a condom in here?"

"Siyeon got a boob job and dropped out to go to Taiwan and be a swimsuit model," Sungmin says. He ignores the question about the condom. He ignores Byungyoon's stare. "She didn't care if we existed or not." He pulls a rollie out of the pack. "Check your pockets, too."

Byungyoon finds the lighter in the back pocket of his trousers. It's a golden Zippo. He snaps it open. The flame dances in the breeze. He laughs at it. "Of course it's in my pocket. If you had it, you would have already lost it." He looks to Sungmin. "Are you taking a video?"

Sungmin grins from behind his phone. All around them, there's noises of the crew talking to each other, giving instructions on how to set the scene up. One of the lighting techs is sitting in the passenger seat of the car, putting in a little orange light on the dash to light Sungmin's face in the next shot. A runner is handing out coffee to people. Way, way off in the distance, the lights of the city twinkle. The light from Sungmin's phone screen makes him look paler, his teeth whiter. "You look like a real smooth fucker when you do that."

Byungyoon smiles. He snaps the lighter shut, and then clicks it open again. He sparks the flame. "Like this?"

Sungmin grins wider, until his laugh lines show, and keeps filming. Byungyoon moves the lighter in his hand, like he's about to do a magic trick, even though he has no idea how. He waves it in front of Sungmin's phone, to make the flame move, and watches Sungmin's smile. 

He thinks, _I used to be in love with you in high school._

They sit on one of the traffic barriers while Sungmin smokes. Byungyoon hands him his jacket, and Sungmin shuffles into it, shimmying his shoulders as the fabric settles on him. He tilts his face up and exhales a long stream of smoke towards the night sky.

Byungyoon waits for Sungmin to pick the conversation up. He thinks about Siyeon, who he hasn't thought about in years, and how he wrote her a love letter that he was going to leave in her locker just before Christmas holidays started that one year. How, in the end, he never had the guts to go through with it, because he felt too guilty about having a crush on someone from his school. Sungmin used to tease him about it, just like Byungyoon used to tease Sungmin about always complaining that he was too short to sit in the back of the class with him, and had to sit in the front with all the girls.

He looks at the side of Sungmin's face now, how he sucks his cheeks in when he inhales on the cigarette. How he exhales the smoke, slow and steady, like he's savouring every mouthful. 

Byungyoon thinks of them in high school, when Sungmin told him he couldn't rap, and then immediately offered to teach him and to introduce him to his friends who he'd cypher with after lunch. How mortifying it was the first time he joined their cypher. How they'd stay at Byungyoon's house under the pretense of doing homework, when they were actually listening to Dynamic Duo and trying to write their own rhymes. How they'd go to the playground when there weren't any kids around and do pull-ups on the monkey bars because Byungyoon wanted to get rid of his noodle arms, and Sungmin wanted to be fit enough to get a chest tattoo once he had enough money. 

He didn't spend time with anyone as much as he did with Sungmin. They fit each other well back then, too.

Was that what love was? Was that when it started?

He needs to know. "Sungmin-ah—"

And then they're called back on set. They turn the car around so that Byungyoon can drive into the frame from the other side. He stops just in front of Sungmin, waits for him to get in. Their faces are lit warm orange by the light inside the car. It makes Sungmin's features look softer. (It makes Byungyoon look just the same.) Sungmin rolls the window all the way down, and he lets his arm stick out, fingers drumming on the room of the car as Byungyoon drives. He laughs, because it's in the script that he should be happy. Byungyoon keeps his eyes on the road.

And after, he has to turn the car around so he can drive into the frame from the other side, wait for Sungmin to get in the car, and drive out of the frame again. And cut, and again. 

On the third take, Sungmin says, "Man, we were real ugly losers in high school." Like he'd been thinking about it the entire time, too.

"You're still a loser," Byungyoon says. He's holding the wheel with his left hand. On eleven o'clock.

Sungmin huffs a laugh. "At least I'm not ugly." Out of the corner of his eye, Byungyoon sees him lean back against the headrest. "Do you think they'll let us break soon? I need a cigarette."

On the fourth take, when Sungmin gets in the car and clicks the door shut behind him, and the playback is loud, Byungyoon says, "Do you want to talk about it or will you keep avoiding the subject?"

"I said _used to be,_" Sungmin says. His fingers are tapping on the top of the car. He laughs, like the script says he should. "I said _high school._ It's in the past tense."

"Then why bring it up now?" 

Sungmin runs a hand through his hair. The coordi noona is going to be pissed at him when they cut. She'd been following him with an extra large can of hairspray all night. "Because enough time has passed that I can tell you without worrying you'll stop being my friend because of it." 

Byungyoon thinks about how God has a plan for everyone. How just because you can't see the path, that doesn't mean it's not there, but that you have to trust your feet. He thinks about how you can't pick who you love, or when, or how, just that you have to trust in the bigger picture, in your soul being in the right, loving, God's hands. 

He says, "Oh."

This isn't something he can talk to his pastor about. His pastor is 72 years old and friends with his parents, and he loves to keep them updated on how Byungyoon's faring. His pastor has never outwardly spoken against anyone in his sermons, but Byungyoon has overheard a lot of conversations at church meals between other members of the congregation, most of them his mother's age, to know what opinions he should keep to himself. 

This isn't something he can talk to anyone about. So he does what he does every time something is too big to keep to himself. He prays.

He kneels at his bedside like he used to do when he was a child, and he rests his forehead on his clasped hands, and closes his eyes, and talks to God in his head.

Outside, it's late night. The streetlights glow orange, and in the distance, there's the sound of subway trains. The wind sneaks in through his open window. It smells like rain.

_Please watch over Sungmin,_ he asks God. _I know he's made mistakes, but he never sets out to hurt anyone. He's doing what he can with what You gave him, like we all are._ Only Byungyoon's bedside lamp is on. He's wearing silk pyjamas. _Thank You for blessing him with the courage to tell me what he told me. Even if it did come late. Please help me be as brave and unapologetic in my life and with my words as he is._

Behind his eyelids, he sees Sungmin laughing in the car. _I promised You that love would be all I thought about,_ he tells God. _Not hate, or anger._ He sees Sungmin in the junkyard, in front of the fire, the flames lighting the sharp lines of his face. _Not vanity or sin. Or lust._ He thinks about the press of Sungmin's lips on his forehead. His fingers on the back of his neck. The way his eyes go smaller when he grins. _I'm going to honour that._

And God doesn't answer. But He always listens. 

When Byungyoon falls asleep, it's raining outside. He doesn't dream.

It rains for the next couple of days. It starts out as a downpour that has people hurrying from subway entrances to bus shelters, to anywhere that might keep them dry. The windows on all the restaurants in the neighbourhood where Byungyoon's studio is fog up from the humidity and the heat of the inside compared to the biting, wet cold of the outside. The ahjussi who goes around the neighbourhood collecting cardboard for scrap and stacking it eight feet high on the back of his little bicycle trailer still does it, despite the rain, wrapped in his blue raincoat, his cardboard covered by a giant tarp. Byungyoon gets jjajangmyeon delivered to the studio and eats it with his manager, and the rain continues outside.

He gets woken up one night to his phone ringing. He gropes, blindly, for where it's charging on his nightstand. It's screaming for attention in his hand while he tries to make his eyes focus on the screen

His phone says it's three thirty in the morning. The caller ID says _Sungmin-ah._

Byungyoon yawns into his hand as he picks up. "Hello?"

"_Hello?_" The voice on the other end of the line is a woman's. "_I'm calling because yours was the first number on your friend's speed dial._" She sounds older than the girls Sungmin usually picks up at this time of night. "_He's too drunk to get himself home. Come pick him up._"

Byungyoon sits up in bed. He runs his hand through his hair. It's getting cold enough to grow it out now. "Where are you calling from?"

"_You know where the pochas near Euljiro 3-ga are?_" Byungyoon hums. He does. He remembers, vaguely, getting chicken gizzards at one of them one night, almost a year ago now. "_Look for the one with the number five written on the roof,_" she says. "_And hurry up, or I'll have to leave him on the curb for the street cleaners._"

"Thank—" Byungyoon tries, but she's already hung up.

It's still raining when he gets into his car, dressed in the first thing he grabbed from his closet. It's only a light drizzle at this point, barely strong enough to merit turning on his windshield wipers. At least it's rained for long enough that the fine dust isn't as bad tonight — he leaves the window cracked open just a little, hoping that the late night air and the rain will wake him up. 

He keeps the radio on. The DJ is taking calls from those suffering from insomnia and heartbreak, and playing their requests, which all amount to schmaltzy ballads from the eighties that are reduced to background noise in Byungyoon's mind, along with the whisper of the wipers against his windshield, and the rain.

The tent bar is in an alley a couple of minutes walk from the subway station. It's good that he was told what number to look for, because they all look nearly identical from the outside. Orange tarp and white transparent plastic, all fogged up from the inside so he can't see anything except silhouettes until he steps into the one with the number five written on the roof. 

There's a menu stuck to one wall of the tent, handwritten on white cardboard and bordered by aluminum foil. Under it stands the crossest looking woman Byungyoon has ever seen, surrounded by empty pots, dirty plastic plates and disposable wooden chopsticks that she's shoving into garbage bags.

"We're closing," she says when she sees him. Her voice is the voice he heard on the phone. There's an old CRT television on a long table in front of her. She reaches over to switch it off before he can see what it was playing.

"I'm here to pick up my friend," Byungyoon explains. "You called me earlier."

She wipes her hands on the front of her apron. "Ah, him. Over there." She points with her chin.

Byungyoon turns to see Sungmin at a table in the corner. He's surrounded by soju and beer bottles, and several plates with leftover grilled jogi and half-eaten spicy chicken feet. His head is pillowed by his arms, his face down on the table. Byungyoon closes his eyes for a moment, prays to Saint Jude for strength.

He takes out more money than the meal looks like it's worth, and hands it over to the owner. She accepts it without protest or question. It disappears somewhere in the folds of her apron. "Thank you for calling me," he says to her, bowing.

"Just get your friend out and have him sober up," she says. She starts shoving the paper plates into the garbage bags again, ignoring Byungyoon.

Sungmin's phone is next to his elbow, between an empty bottle of soju and a tiny plate of tofu kimchi. Byungyoon pockets it, and then shakes Sungmin's shoulder gently. "Sungmin-ah."

Sungmin groans out, "Auntie, I'm not causing any trouble." He raises a hand, trying to wave Byungyoon off, and knocks over a beer bottle. "Let me be."

Byungyoon rights the beer bottle before it can roll off the table. "It's me," he says.

Sungmin raises his head at that. His hair falls over his eyes. He squints. "Byungyoonie? Really?"

"Who else," Byungyoon says, and Sungmin's dopey, drunken smile makes him scoff a laugh. There's that warm feeling in his chest again, the feeling that shouldn't by rights be there. "Come on." He grabs Sungmin under his arm, helping him get to his feet. "Time to get you home."

Sungmin hangs onto his jacket, stumbling out of the tent and onto the street. It's a bit tricky, with their height difference, because Byungyoon can't put Sungmin's arm around his shoulder without half hoisting him off the ground. But he somehow manages to get Sungmin into the passenger seat of his car without Sungmin falling over anyway, even though it's a close call a couple of times. Byungyoon buckles him in before he gets in the driver's seat, and makes sure that the passenger door is locked before he starts the car, just in case Sungmin tries to get smart in the middle of the drive.

It's only when they're almost at Sungmin's flat that Byungyoon realises it's stopped raining. The radio plays that Dynamic Duo song they were both obsessed with when it came out. Sungmin sits in silence for the entire ride, not moving and with his eyes closed. He's so quiet that Byungyoon thinks he's fallen asleep, until he catches him singing along to the chorus, mumbling the lyrics quietly into the collar of his leather jacket. 

Byungyoon smiles, eyes on the road.

The code to Sungmin's flat is still the same. Byungyoon gets him through the door, and lets Sungmin hold onto his shoulder while he toes off his wet shoes. He throws them in the corner, where they land on a pile of all his other shoes, laces all tangled up. 

Byungyoon is unlacing his own shoes as he hears the scratching of little paws against the floor, and Sungmin's dogs come over to say hello. Sungmin bends down to scratch Wink behind the ears, one arm out of his jacket. Boma sniffs at Byungyoon's outstretched fingers, and then licks them, apparently pleased. As Sungmin's hanging his jacket up, the dogs scamper away, satisfied with a job well done, having made sure that it's just Byungyoon and Sungmin, and not burglars.

Sungmin's bedroom is small and cramped, piled with boxes of stuff like he'd just moved in yesterday. There's a clothes rack in one corner, and a drying rack dominating over half of the room. His bed is unmade and low to the ground. Byungyoon eases him down onto it, and Sungmin sits, knees hugged to his chest. He's pale, but he doesn't look like he's going to throw up, at least. Boma comes over from somewhere and starts scratching on the duvet, getting ready to fall asleep.

"Are you okay?" Byungyoon asks. He's squatting down in front of Sungmin. 

"Just smashed." Sungmin watches Boma spinning in circles, before the dog finally settles down on his messy duvet. 

"Did you take anything?" Byungyoon tries to catch Sungmin's eyes. 

Sungmin scoffs. "No." His pupils look like he's not lying, at least. "Thought about it, but I didn't have anything with me. And I don't wanna get arrested again." He groans, burying his face between his knees. "I'm not gonna be sick," he says, like he's anticipating Byungyoon's next question.

Byungyoon sits down on the floor and crosses his legs. The floor is warm. Sungmin must have turned the heating on before he left. "How come none of your friends took you home?"

"Wasn't drinking with friends," Sungmin says, into his knees. "Just me."

Byungyoon sighs. In his mind, he counts the bottles that were on that table again. "Do you know what they call people who get borderline blackout drunk in the middle of the week, by themselves?"

"I'm not harming anyone, am I," Sungmin throws back. "It's stupid that people care about shit I do to myself." He sits up, breathing out through his nose. "It's nobody's fucking business." He frowns at his knees, not looking at Byungyoon's face. "Nobody's business if I take drugs, how much I drink, or who I fuck."

_I'm your best friend, it's my business,_ Byungyoon thinks. But that's not what Sungmin means. "What are you trying to say?"

"That foreign girl, at that club in Hapjeong last month..." Sungmin starts. "Fuck." He leans back. His head thunks against the wall, and he grimaces and closes his eyes. "I fingered her in the bathroom after you left. She sucked me off. Man, she swallowed, who does that to someone they've just met?" He grins at the ceiling, but it's just his muscles moving. There's no mirth to it. "It was great, but the whole time I was… thinking of other stuff."

"What were you thinking about?" When the words leave Byungyoon's mouth, he realises immediately how they sound.

Sungmin opens his eyes, and something about his expression changes. 

Byungyoon thinks that maybe this was the wrong question to ask, because Sungmin tilts his head so he's looking at Byungyoon down the slope of his nose, and he says, "Not her."

Byungyoon breaks eye contact, and gets to his feet. "I'm going to get you some water, else you'll feel awful in the morning," he says, to the floor.

His brain keeps ringing, _not her, not her, not her._

He switches the light on in Sungmin's hallway. There's shoe boxes stacked up against the side of one wall. He thinks, _not her,_ as he looks for a clean glass in the cupboard. He rinses it in the sink, just in case, and thinks _not her_ as he fills the glass up from the water dispenser. 

When he comes back to the bedroom, Sungmin is sitting with his hair falling over his face. Head bowed, hands clasped tight, pressed to his forehead. He looks like he's praying. He's just drunk enough that he could be. Byungyoon wonders who he's praying to. What he's asking for. He thinks, _not her_. If he's promising anything, like Byungyoon does when he prays.

Byungyoon sits back on the floor opposite him. He waits until Sungmin's opened his hands to push the glass into his grip, and he thinks, _not her._

And Byungyoon says, "So you're into men."

Sungmin laughs into his glass. He sets it down, now empty, on the floor. His laugh is still dry, despite that. "And women," he says.

Byungyoon thinks— "Not her," he says.

Sungmin blinks at him. "No." And he's looking at him like he's waiting for something. His shirt is unbuttoned more than Byungyoon could ever wear it, collar open wide.

Byungyoon stares at him. There's stubble on Sungmin's chin, like he's not shaved in a couple of days. Dark shadows under his eyes. His lips look chapped. The bleached parts of his hair are yellow now, his roots dark and taking over, like his natural hair is fighting against the product and winning. 

He catches himself looking at Sungmin's lips again, how he bites at them like he's trying to peel off a bit of dry skin. Byungyoon thinks, _What am I supposed to do?_

Sungmin moves his hand to scratch an itch on his chest, where his shirt is open. And he says, "Never mind. I need a smoke."

When Byungyoon says, "Wait," Sungmin's hand stops moving. Byungyoon sucks his lips past his teeth for a moment. He squeezes them together and notices how Sungmin's eyes follow the movement. "Let me come with you."

And of course Sungmin lets him.

On the rooftop of Sungmin's building, the city is alive beneath them. Shop signs create a haze of light above the buildings, all the way down to the river and the skyscrapers, aircraft warning lights blinking red on top. Scooter engines sputter, and cars honk their horns, even at this time of night.

There's plastic chairs on the roof, placed around an upturned, empty crate of beer. Byungyoon flips them on their front legs to shake off most of the rain water before they sit down.

Sungmin fishes a pack of cigarettes out of a hole in a breezeblock hidden under the crate. He lights his cigarette with the golden Zippo, the one that Byungyoon recognises from before. When he blows out the first smoke, it doesn't smell entirely like tobacco. But no one else is here, and they're too far up for it to matter, so Byungyoon doesn't say anything about it. 

He lets Sungmin smoke in silence. There's a bar, or a club somewhere nearby — above the sound of the wind, Byungyoon can hear a very, very faint drumbeat. 

There's a beer bottle on the crate. Sungmin shakes ash into it. That's what it seems to be there for — there's a bit of water at the bottom, dirty with ash and full of cigarette butts. He exhales slow, the smoke oozing from his mouth almost like a liquid. It smells sweet.

After a while, Byungyoon says, "I don't know how to do this. I'm sorry."

Sungmin's chair creaks when he gets up from it. He doesn't stagger as he gets to his feet. He only sways a little when he walks to the edge of the roof. 

Below, the whirr of an AC unit. Below, Seoul.

Byungyoon looks at Sungmin's back, and the way the breeze plays with his hair. "Our faith teaches—" He stops himself, and rethinks what he's going to say. And tries again. "Some who teach our faith say that... if I love another man as anything more than a brother, I'm facing an eternity of damnation. Of Hell."

Sungmin holds the spliff between finger and thumb when he takes a drag on it. He tilts his head up when he exhales the smoke. The sky here is tinged blue in all the black.

Byungyoon gets up from his chair. It creaks its old plastic groan.

"And that's not— that's not what I believe," Byungyoon says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. It's a cold night. "But when I hear it around me a lot, it's difficult to stop thinking about it like that."

"So what do you believe, then," Sungmin asks. There's no intonation to his voice, like he doesn't want to put the effort into making it a question. 

"I—" Byungyoon pauses. He exhales. The tips of his shoes are about half a step from the edge of the rooftop. He turns his face up to the sky. One single star winks back at him. "I don't think it matters."

Sungmin smokes, silent. Like he's still waiting.

"As long as your love is sincere, and you're willing to give yourself to the other person," Byungyoon starts, speaking to that single winking star, "and show them how special they are to you, I don't think their gender matters." He swallows spit, trying to shove down the lump in his throat. Saying it feels painful somehow, like ripping a bandaid off a fresh wound. "I don't think it makes any sense to worry about that."

Sungmin laughs. "God," he says. Byungyoon frowns at the sky. The star seems to be in a different place now. "God!" Sungmin says, louder, and Byungyoon realises that what he thought was a star is the blinking navigation light of an airplane passing overhead. He looks over at Sungmin. 

Sungmin is still grinning when he says, "Never let me forget what a romantic fucker you are."

Byungyoon shakes his head. "No, but—" Sungmin takes a step towards him. "Saying that is one thing." And another. "Being— being true to that—" Sungming is giving him a look, eyebrows raised. Byungyoon doesn't understand what that look is. "That's— that's something else." He's always been good with words. He's not doing so great now. "I'm trying, I'm just—"

"Byungyoon-ah," Sungmin says.

"What," Byungyoon says, warily. He looks from Sungmin's hands, to his unbuttoned shirt, his jacket hanging loose. To his face getting closer, to his eyes, closing, and his lips parting.

And then they're too close for Byungyoon to keep looking, so he closes his eyes as Sungmin's lips touch his.

Byungyoon last kissed someone on the mouth when he was wishing his great aunt a happy birthday, and they both miscalculated how the other one would turn their cheek. 

His chest tightens. He opens his mouth like he's hoping for something, and Sungmin's tongue touches his, and he tastes like cigarettes and—

Sungmin moves away, and says, "That."

"Just that?" 

Sungmin takes a step away, and continues smoking. "Just that," he says, to the city below. 

Byungyoon's heart is racing, the way it does before he gets up on stage. He feels like bouncing on the soles of his feet, the way boxers do before the start of a big match. To channel that adrenaline somewhere. Into his heels, into the ground.

"Ryu Sungmin." He can't believe how his voice doesn't shake at all.

He turns to look at him when Byungyoon says it, and his eyes glint with amusement. "Yeah?"

"Put that out."

Sungmin drops the half-smoked spliff from his fingers and grinds it under the toe of his shoe. He sticks his chin out, trying to make himself look taller. "Okay."

Byungyoon takes a step closer. He doesn't know what to do with his hands at all. There's a phantom pain of pins and needles in the tips of his fingers. He puts them to Sungmin's shoulders, where the leather of the jacket is wrinkled like an old man's forehead. He runs his palms along his forearms, to his elbows.

Sungmin laughs. "What are you doing?"

His hair is wispy around his face, and Byungyoon touches the backs of his fingers to it, watches it move. It looks softer than it feels. His fingertips skim across Sungmin's neck. Down, over the cross tattoo between his collarbones. And back up, to tuck his hair behind an ear. He's wearing the golden alligator earrings again, the ones Byungyoon has hardly seen him without lately. 

Sungmin is looking at his face. His pupils are wide, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, like he hadn't been sleeping well. Like he just spent the whole night drinking and then smoked half a spliff. 

Byungyoon touches Sungmin's chin to feel rough stubble. His fingers are right underneath his lower lip, and Sungmin's lips part. His breath tickles the backs of Byungyoon's fingers, and Byungyoon moves them away. 

The skin of Sungmin's neck is hot. His throat bobs under Byungyoon's fingertips when he swallows spit. His cheek is as smooth as his cheekbone is sharp when Byungyoon runs his thumb across it. 

His fingers go into Sungmin's hair, thumb on the bump of his cheek. Byungyoon cups his head, and tilts his face up. He closes his eyes just when Sungmin's features are too close to be clear, and kisses him.

And Sungmin's mouth is open this time, and he still tastes like sweet smoke, and soju, and his tongue is warm and wet in Byungyoon's mouth. His arms go up, and he tugs at the collar of Byungyoon's jacket to keep him where he is.

Sungmin's lips are dry. His stubble scratches Byungyoon's chin. Byungyoon isn't sure if he's doing this right. Sungmin pulls back a fraction to catch his breath and let it all out in a little laugh, so quiet it soaks into the curve of Byungyoon's upper lip. He parts his lips, slower than he exhales smoke. His tongue moves, and there's too much cold air between them, their breaths mist. 

Byungyoon closes the gap, careful, breathing him in. They fit each other well. Sungmin's hair smells like smoke and sweat and the traces of shampoo. Byungyoon feels his hand on the back of his neck again, pulling him down. He feels the twist deep in his stomach, like the grumble of thunder in the distance as the storm starts to close in. He grabs onto that feeling, grabs onto Sungmin's shoulder and pushes his fingers into the fabric of his jacket.

There is no one else on this rooftop. There is no one else in all of Seoul.

Sungmin's breathing is shallow when they part, and his eyes are closed when he says, "Fuck." Still clutching onto Byungyoon's jacket. "I thought I was over this, but you— you're impossible, with your straight-laced altar boy bullshit." He rubs his thumb over one of the buttons. "And you're so… forgiving at the same time. How are you not sick of yourself, how can you just keep being— being—"

Byungyoon wants his hands back on his neck. "Being what?"

Sungmin shakes his head defiantly. "Don't make me say it."

Byungyoon chuckles. "What!"

And Sungmin says, tugging at his jacket, "You. You're just you." He lets go of the fabric. His arms fall to his sides. "And it's insufferable that you keep getting away with it."

Byungyoon nods. "You too, Ryu Sungmin."

Sungmin takes a step closer. Stepping between Byungyoon's feet. He looks up at him. "Say my name like that again."

And Byungyoon says, "Ryu Sungmin?"

Arms going around his neck, Sungmin says, "Good enough," and pulls him down for a kiss again.

And Seoul glints below, alive with the smell of 24 hour fried chicken restaurants, and bakeries, and exhaust fumes, and cigarette smoke. 

"Are you going to remember this in the morning?" Byungyoon asks it into the collar of Sungmin's shirt, into the skin of his neck.

And Sungmin says, "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

**Author's Note:**

> you ever just... watch smtm5 and cry because these guys are best friends? no, me neither.
> 
> a note: that dynamic duo song they were both obsessed with when it came out is [johnny](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Gsicz-6cI). I made that up, but I know bewhy is a dynamic duo fan. and everyone is a fan of johnny. it's an eternal bop. 
> 
> this is the first bewhy/cjamm fic on ao3 so please if you read it, leave a comment and tell me what you thought!


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